Syracuse Orange football set to open 2023 amid uncertainty

Filed under:

Lots of questions about the present and future will be answered this fall

We probably won’t learn a lot about the Syracuse Orange football team this weekend. Not just about the ability of this year’s roster, I’m also talking about the program’s future.

Syracuse enters the 2023 season with moderate expectations nationally. People seem to think the Orange will be right around the 6-7 win mark and while most here feel this could be a better year, just as many commenters on Facebook feel the opposite way.

There are big questions facing this squad. Will Garrett Shrader stay healthy this season? Can Steve Farmer build a functional offensive line with three new starters? Will the Orange secondary be able to perform after losing a lot of talent?

The hope is that we leave the Colgate game talking about younger players emerging, or about the performance of two new coordinators in Jason Beck and Rocky Long. This Syracuse team offers the fanbase something to be excited about in 2023 and beyond....

Hanging over that excitement is more uncertainty. Will Dino Babers be in Syracuse beyond this year? If not what happens to a promising 2024 class? With the transfer portal, can the Orange hold onto promising young players as bigger programs come calling? We’ll have a better idea about these things before Christmas.

Then there’s the whole question hovering over the long-term health of the ACC? With Syracuse investing heavily in the JMA Wireless Dome and Lally Complex, will the investments keep the Orange in a position to benefit from higher revenue? If football teams

At this point, we can worry and wonder about some of these questions, but the team really must follow the cliché of focusing on the next opponent. They don’t need to be concerned with predictions or realignment. They don’t need to worry about Virginia Tech or Georgia Tech are doing, they need to pay attention to detail each week.

If the Orange can play to the potential, a lot of the questions will be answered by the end of 2023. The team has experience returning. They have talented players who will be drawing NFL scouts to the Dome all season. It could be a special season in the 315.

The time to talk is ending and we’ll see what the next three months brings, even if it takes a couple of weeks for the picture to gain some clarity.